From ghosts to aliens... not a bad bit of topic drift :P

There are really only three reasons to leave one's solar system:

-Acreage with good air and water. There is a LOT of water and metal and methane and for all we know light hydrocarbons out there in the form of comets and asteroids. And there is plenty of acreage out there if you use grow lights and green houses and constructs of various types. But it won't be beach front.

-Precious and unique luxury trades. Spices, drugs, and organics like textiles, woods and perfumes that can't be synthesized worth a damn. Maybe antimatter, on a NIMBY principle. Everything else.... if you can get FTL or even sleeper ships, you can harvest those asteroids and comets. You only trade trinkets like fish hooks and belt buckles and the cure for cancer with the local primitives because the don't know the true value of their worth.

-Spreading the word. Yes, I'm talking about witnessing the miracle of Humf'slurch to the ignorant and backwards primates who are too innocent to know the truth. And while we're doing that, we'll be using them as cheap labor and janissary troops, while trading them cheap trinkets. And if they give us too much grief, slaughter the brave and loud, and make slaves of the rest. Or lunch. Or we'll have a one way sleeper ship that has two choice- take slaves or be slaves, and either way they'll try to beat us down.

None of that is exactly Starfleet issue sweetness and light. Yes, I'm a cynic. Again, I don't know what you UFOs are, but I know what I hope they aren't.

BTW, Jeff, Nightmare Planet? You wouldn't have read Hogan's Giant's Trilogy by chance?
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-IronRaven

When a man dare not speak without malice for fear of giving insult, that is when truth starts to die. Truth is the truest freedom.